Nostalgia or genuine quality?

  • James_H
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    Joined: 08.10.2014Posts: 24CollectionJames_Hs CollectionRatings: 3

    This is a question directed towards Horst. Im interested to know his views on some of the closed distilleries that seem to constantly score extremely highly with everyone reviewing them. Can it be that where normally people disagree, when it comes to a Port Ellen, Brora or Rosebank, all of a sudden almost everyone is in total agreement about how amazing they are? I wondered if nostalgia and fashion were clouding peoples judgement or whether the whisky simply was that good? Will the casks left not be severly limited now, therefore meaning the blenders have to use what they have instead of being able to pick just the very best? Would this not lead to a decrease in quality, or are there still enough to mean it's not a problem? Finally, if the whisky was that good in the first place, why close the distilleries?

    I haven't tried any of these whiskies so I'm unable to make my own judgement, but if Horst could shed some light on the matter I'd be most grateful.

    Keep up the good work with the video's, I always watch and always enjoy them.

    Thanks

  • Art_2 Member Art_2 Joined: 08.08.2014Posts: 23Ratings: 0
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    This is a good topic, in my opinion Horst could address it in the FAQs.

  • schnazola Guest, Member schnazola Joined: 16.04.2015Posts: 31CollectionSchnaz's EmptiesRatings: 4
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    "James_H" wrote:
    Finally, if the whisky was that good in the first place, why close the distilleries?

    I suppose that the quality of the whisky doesn't always translate into financial success. Some people may be better distillers than businessmen.

    Art_2 liked that
  • horst_s_2 Administrator horst_s_2 Joined: 01.07.2014Posts: 507Ratings: 661
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    Thank you James for the question. And yes, I will answer it in a FAQ video in more detail.

    These whiskies from the lost distilleries have an extreme advantage. They have a decent age. They had time to mature. A lot of modern whiskies are just pumped up in a short time in excellent casks.

    There are two types of maturation called additive maturation and subtractive maturation. There is a covering article here on the website.

    The immaturity of a whisky is lost in the first 5 to 8 years. Adding two or three decades to this process will not help much. But the cask will work heftily on the whisky over these years. And you will have to bottle the whisky just when top maturity is reached. The weaker (reused) the cask is, the longer you need to add up cask character. And you will get a lot of formerly unknown aromas during this slow addition of cask flavors. But - and that is the point - there are so exhausted casks that they will never add up to something special. They had been already too exhausted when they were filled.

    Good examples are the last casks of Dallas Dhu. What I had the chance to put my nose in was in the best cases just mediocre and far too expensive.

    And therefore you find more and more bottles of old casks from which the whisky was finished in some way. They had to add more cask flavors because otherwise the overall flavor would have been too weak.

    Kind regards, Horst Luening, Master Taster, Whisky.com
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